World Records - British Ultima GTR Destroys The Lap Record On The Track Which Is Used By Top Gear To Record Their Lap Times By Almost Five Seconds

Tuesday 23rd October 2007

British supercar manufacturers Ultima Sports Ltd have this week celebrated their 15th year anniversary in style by obliterating the road car lap record on the track which is used by Top Gear to record their lap times by over four and a half seconds in their standard production Ultima GTR720 road car, which was a record previously held according to the Top Gear chart by the Swedish Koenigsegg CCX.

Driven by Ultima's own mystery driver, the standard production 200 + mph Ultima GTR720 equipped with fully e-marked road tyres which was driven to the test venue, recorded a blistering fully verified lap time of 1min12.8secs, demolishing the lap time of the £415,000 Koenigsegg CCX of 1min17.6secs on the Top Gear chart. The record attempt was organized by Ultima Sports Ltd themselves in conjunction with Plans Motorsport after apparently being overlooked by the producers at Top Gear TV over the last couple of years despite repeated approaches.

Richard Marlow, Director of Ultima Sports Ltd commented:"It came as no surprise to any of us here at the factory that on our very first hot lap in the Ultima GTR the best time set according to the Top Gear chart was well and truly beaten leaving all other supercars in it's wake which accurately demonstrates the all round performance envelope of the Ultima GTR. I always knew that the GTR could outperform all the supercars on the top gear chart with ease by a simply huge margin. The fully verified lap time data shows that in a head to head race with the £450,000 Ferrari Enzo the Ultima GTR would lap it every 12 laps according to the times stated on the Top Gear chart! What we have achieved over the last few years with this and all of our previous officially verified world record runs is a clean sweep of the majority of recognized performance parameters in existence all held at the same time. We have collated more independently verified evidence demonstrating the world leading performance statistics of our standard road car than any other car manufacturer in history. It's truly a fantastic feeling which we are all extremely proud of here at Ultima Sports, and what's more these were achieved with just our GTR720 model, we have recently announced a more powerful and faster GTR800 variant for those whom want even more.It is typical of our company tradition to have set the fastest lap time in history with a relatively affordable supercar which retails in stock form for around one tenth the price of the majority of the supercar competition, and is yet another accomplishment for the automotive history books which perfectly conveys our company philosophy of producing useable, exciting Le Mans inspired GT road cars with unbeatable road presence and giant killing performance. This aptly illustrates the rationale behind the global success of Ultima Sports Ltd since the company was formed in 1992."

Ted Marlow, Managing Director of Ultima Sports Ltd commented:"We were forced into having to achieve this track record independently as despite repeated approaches by ourselves, customers and worldwide Ultima fans to Top Gear TV with a view to having the Ultima GTR720 timed around the Top Gear track and road test, no invites were forthcoming.This was a superb opportunity for us to validate the superb road holding, aerodynamic ability and handling finesse of our British product, as this is one of the few tracks in existence that have verified lap times publicly available for most of the major worldwide supercars in production today, and we are delighted to have an Ultima currently leading such a prestigious performance league table. I was frankly exasperated from watching on the TV all types of supercars from around the world setting hot laps with the Stig at the wheel, and decided that the time had come for a British built supercar to have a crack at the record as I was always confident that our standard product could comfortably take the crown. We have frankly destroyed the existing lap record which proves yet again that the Ultima GTR is in a league of its own."

The event was conducted in conjunction with Plans Motorsport whom were present at the test to oversee and witness the successful road car lap record attempt, their own GPS Race Technology DL1 data logging equipment was fitted to the car for a full set of independently verified lap time data.The Ultima GTR720 tested is a full road going car with compliant suspension and often used as a daily driver. All the vehicles produced by Ultima Sports Ltd have the usual road luxuries such as air conditioning, ICE, leather trim, sealed luggage carrying compartments and of course road car levels of ground clearance suitable for speed humps and other road obstacles. The Ultima GTR720 is equipped with a standard 5 speed Porsche G50-03 transmission and a standard production option 720bhp engine from the OE engine suppliers American Speed (www.amerspeed.com).

Our company policy worldwide is to deal directly with Ultima customers. We do not appoint any distributors, agents, recommended parts suppliers or builders. Any person or company purporting to be appointed by Ultima (apart from American Speed) is doing so without the approval of Ultima Sports Ltd.